


Call of the Void

by fadewithfury (foxmoon)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Dimension-Hopping Rose, F/M, Reunion, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-11-13 20:03:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11192439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxmoon/pseuds/fadewithfury
Summary: The Doctor and Rose reunite, but of course it can't be that simple. An ancient TARDIS entraps them at the edge of the newly formed universe, and is determined that only one of them can escape alive. A sacrifice must be made, and this time it's the Doctor that has to give up everything to be with the woman he loves.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a concept that has been rolling around in my brain and in outline for years. I decided to share it with you as my final Doctor/Rose story, and it's one that will keep them together forever. It's sort of a Journey's End fix-it, because that never ends up happening, because... well, you'll see if you read. :)
> 
> Thank you to @lostinfic, who is as dear of a friend as she is valuable as a beta.

“Blimey, what a view!” The Doctor rested his shoulder against the frame of the open TARDIS door. “Where else can you see every city skyline in every world that ever existed, all at once? And would you have a look at that. The sunset and sunrise at the same time—brilliant!”

Here, in the earliest days of the universe, nothing existed, and yet simultaneously, everything existed. The bits that would eventually coalesce into his beloved cosmos were too disparate, too diminutive, to be directly observed. The result of an explosion that burned brighter than imaginable, and then faded into this vast, dark soup.

The TARDIS’s ambient glow wavered in immense discomfort. Shields struggled to hold.

“Just one minute longer,” he said distractedly. Not that he could blame his beloved ship. After all, they currently hovered 35 million years beyond the start of this universe. Just within range of the first ever stars to exist. Why? To gain perspective. To reflect on his travels with Martha and all he’d learnt from them. He ran his thumb over the hair clip in his pocket. Nah, this was something else, something far more primeval. He’d felt it once before, hadn’t he?

He looked down at how the tips of his trainers had, at some point, inched just over the edge. Cream canvas stark against the fathomless every-nothing. Then he recognised it, that ancient pull to descend into the pit and never return. Oh, of course. He once spoke of it as an itch, something humans experienced: the urge to fall. L'appel du vide. Existential reductionism. But truthfully, everything experienced it—every creature in the universe. The deep, strange curiosity that obliteration may result in ecstasy. A return to this era of time when everything was reduced to its smallest, safest, and most potent state.

Then a word, a name, came to him so quick that he had no time to stuff it back down. It sparked to life on his tongue, along with all the memories and anguish the sound of it brought.

“Rose.”

Rose was here. He was here too, in fact.They mingled together for millions upon millions of years before those ostentatious particles of theirs decided they’d rather start doing something with all that potential. Ionisation. Stabilisation. He inched back from the edge.

“Rose Tyler,” he said to the void. “I know you’re out there, and maybe you can’t hear me like you could as an evolved, multicellular organism, but I need you to know—” He paused to allow that terrible squeezing sensation in his chest to dissipate. Oh, he sounded supremely daft, but why not? If something as enigmatic as the call of the void could penetrate eons, perhaps this could too. “Need you to know down to the very tiniest bits of you, that I—”

The TARDIS door slammed shut in his face, and he flailed backward, long limbs sticking out every which-way to keep himself upright. The hair clip he’d been fidgeting with in his pocket skittered out across the grated floor, and he scrambled to capture it before it got lost down below.

“Oi! What was that for?”

Exasperation flared across their mental connection.

“You’re the one that brought me here!” He straightened his jacket as he stood and kept the hair clip clenched in his palm.

 _You had your chance, he inferred._ Oh, not this again. She’ll never let him forget how he made her engulf a star to say goodbye to Rose, only to waste so much bloody time with idle chit-chat. But it’d felt so familiar and fantastic to simply converse with her, even as a projection.

_Does it need saying?_

The TARDIS made a rather terrible warbling sound, and his mind became riddled with accusatory sensations. Suggestions that he’d intentionally drawn out his confession, that he knew it’d strike the right chord within Rose and make her wild with the drive to find a way back to him.

He spun around and gave the ceiling of the console room his best stink-eye. “That’s absurd! It was simply a matter of nerves. Yes, even I get nervous.” He sniffed.

He couldn’t say how he felt without touching her. It wouldn’t mean the same thing to him. She deserved to know it in the most authentic way he could convey, true to his culture, his species. But, he went ahead and tried the human way with his boring old voice, and time ran out as it’s want to do. In that final split second of hesitation after he spoke her name, his mind grasped for the last tendrils of all those wonderful, potential futures with her. Felt them burn out one by one like village lights in the distant nightfall, until the only option left was to watch her disappear.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and skulked back to the console.

The lights lowered apologetically.

"It’s all right. I deserve it." He flicked a couple of random switches for no apparent reason, and a toggle for good measure. Before his thoughts could twist further down the errant pathways of might-have-beens and if-onlys, the mauve alert blared. In a panic, he muted the alarm and skimmed over the controls he’d jostled in hopes he hadn’t activated it himself. It wasn’t until he jerked the viewscreen around that he discovered the source.

“That’s… strange.”

There, a wee bit further into the future from his current position, nestled in one of the earliest galaxies in the universe, was a ship. The TARDIS couldn’t seem to detect its origin or match to anything similar in her database, possibly due to too much interference from the someday-to-be relic radiation surrounding his position. One life sign on board. Primary systems offline for two billion years until its universal emergency protocol was activated just now. Curious--but that, too, could be just a glitch.

“Well then, let’s go have a look, shall we?”

The TARDIS gave no response this time. He pulled down the dematerialisation lever with a grin.

After a quick, rather bumpy journey through the time stream, he reached the mystery ship’s coordinates. The scans from this position were a little better. One life-sign, human, and not just any ship, it was a time ship. A TARDIS, to be exact. But—how? A quick switcheroo of the viewscreen to a live feed, and there it was, spinning in orbit around a small planet, the silver gleam of a TT-type 28-B Endymion. One of the earliest types commissioned for the simple purpose of charting space-time. It worked more like a probe than a vehicle, but it wasn’t unheard of for one to be piloted.

“Wow, now that’s-that’s something. Haven’t seen one of those since learning of them at the academy!” He tilted his head at the word ‘human’ on the readout. “Oh, but what are you doing in there? Knew you lot got around, but this is a bit much. Hmmm.”

He ran the scans again, just in case, and the readout changed. Virus. With life-signs weakening. The mauve alert’s mallow glow pulsed soundlessly as he mused over the unlikely events that could lead to a virus activating the mauve alert signal on a ship. Human, virus. A life in danger, that’s what mattered.

“Off we go, then!”

Landing the TARDIS inside of the other TARDIS was only a tiny bit less potentially catastrophic than landing his TARDIS inside of itself, but it was the only way.

///

Amber-pink lights flickered to life. This was a first—the dimension-cannon had never taken Rose indoors before. She kept as still as possible, both to process the queasy after-effects of crossing the void, and to listen out for anyone she might have alerted. The curved corridor walls had a shimmery dragon-scale reflective effect when she moved her head. No windows, grated floor. A motley bundle of cables ran along the ceiling, and a closed hatch sat to her left. A ship or something, was it?

The sickness from her jump edged away at last, and no one had rushed to inspect the presence of an intruder. She checked the dimension cannon for details of her coordinates: _NULL NULL NULL NULL_. That couldn’t be good.

Summoning courage, she followed the corridor in which the dimension cannon had placed her, no less nervous this time than she had been on her first jump. Blimey, had it really been eight times already? She reckoned the fear would never go away, but it didn’t matter. She had to find the Doctor, and this is where the search had taken her.

An amorphous tone reverberated in the distance, inspiring visions of an enormous creature deep in slumber. The scales on the walls shimmered in rhythm with that resonant sound. Rose shuddered and closed her eyes at the memory of the last living ship she’d encountered. The Doctor’s voice, or an approximation of it she conjured to ground herself, filled her mind with potential facts and myths about her surroundings. A habit that began as a coping mechanism to get her through the early days of their separation, now a source of strength on her quest to find him. Her fingers flexed for a hand that wasn’t there.

“You’ve got this,” she said to herself.

Up ahead, the corridor led to the entrance of what she hoped might be the bridge of the ship, or at least some sort of interface where she could use her rudimentary technology skills to figure out where the hell she was in her old universe.

She approached the room achingly slow, with breaths held high and shallow in her chest. Please let this place be as abandoned as it seemed, or at least operated by friendly aliens. No surprise Daleks or clockwork robots, ta.

When at last she reached the threshold to the room, all that pent up caution was jettisoned with an audible gasp. Standing in the centre of the dome-shaped room was a hexagonal control console, its central column gave off a low iridescent glow. Rings of circular portals inset with clouded amber glass stacked along the walls.

“Doctor?”

No reply, so she inspected further. The door was all silver and wrong, and four large pylons took on a shape more like curtains of stalactites and stalagmites than the coral struts she remembered. All of it made of that same pearlescent, scale-like material from the corridor walls.

“Doctor, are you there? I see you’ve redecorated. It’s, um… lovely, I guess?” She fidgeted with her earring. A bright, joyous flower began to bloom in her chest, but the bees dancing on her nerves made it difficult to stick to one emotion at a time.

Still nothing. No one else would have a TARDIS, but if she’d been able to cross universes, anything could be possible. She approached the center of the room, and the overhead glow shifted from the pale rose-gold to a deeper mauve. Rose looked up as an uneasy sensation crept over her.

“Hey, it’s all right. 'M not gonna hurt you.”

An ache stirred in her temples, just enough to irritate her. Jumps had given her headaches before, so she thought nothing of it and resumed her exploration. The control panel had no buttons or gears, just large glass-like slabs - one with a colorful, semi-translucent gel of sorts. No seats, no viewscreen either. She checked the dimension cannon again and it hadn’t changed from the bizarre _NULL NULL NULL NULL_ readout. One minute left until recharge was complete.

After walking a full circle around the console, she reached out to touch it. The moment her fingertips made contact, the ache in her temples spread outward until an immense pressure surrounded her mind, making her knees buckle. She cried out from the pain, and braced herself on the console, eyes screwed shut until the pressure subsided back to the dull throb from moments before.

She eased open her eyes. “Oi, don’t you dare muck about in my head,” she said with an upward glare. The ship made no response.

A gleaming 3D display of ticking circles and lines had risen from the console. It brought to mind the sticky notes with similar scrawled diagrams stuck to the Doctor’s viewscreen. She’d also discovered them hidden in various books in the TARDIS library. Corrections, reminders, grocery lists.That’s all they were, the Doctor had claimed, but they enchanted her all the same.

Rose smiled despite her apprehension. Her eyes stung with the stirring of hope in her chest. She looked up to dry the tears to find that the glow from the central column had darkened permanently to muddy, purple-pink. Oh, god. That’s right-the mauve alert: universal code for danger. The singular metal door caught her attention again, and she took a step forward. Pressure flooded her mind, and she clung to her head with a groan of pain. The oscillating, distant hum from the ship became thunderous, to the point her body felt like it might vibrate into pieces. Then without warning it stopped without so much as an echo.

She struggled to remain upright and braced herself on a stalactite strut. “What th-what the hell?”

A new sound arose from the silence, but it was so faint and distant that Rose thought it came from her own heart. Then a phantom breeze rustled her hair, and the sound intensified. A howling, grinding displacement of space-time. Rose searched the space around her frantically for the source, and at last she could see it, a tall blue box. It slowly blinked in and out of existence until it solidified with a final reverberating knock.

She stared at the police box doors, unable to move or scarcely even breathe. The surrounding ship’s omnipresent hum shuddered a few times, and a weird whale-call sort of noise followed. The light dimmed and brightened, and then went out all together. She blinked to adjust to the stark contrast between the bright gear-like circles of the console interface and the penetrating blackness beyond. The edge of the TARDIS was illuminated there, like a ghost. Rose couldn’t tear her eyes away if she tried, and only blinked to clear the hot tears from blurring her view. Her fingers gripped the stalactite strut and she felt the throb in her temples return, but she couldn’t bloody well care less.

At last, the TARDIS door opened, and the Doctor cautiously emerged. He was just as she remembered him: great hair, lanky pinstriped limbs, and backlit by the green-blue glow from his TARDIS interior. He looked up to the central column, tongue pressed to his top teeth.

Then their eyes met through the moving symbols. “Rose?”

“Doct—” her voice shook, jaw clenched by overwhelming emotions. “Doctor.”

He stepped out, leaving the door ajar, without breaking eye contact.

“It’s really you?” He squinted. His tone belied more scepticism than wonder.

God, his voice. His proper voice, and not just some daft message about Utharian spaghetti he’d left on her mobile years ago on repeat to help her fall asleep at night. “Yeah,” she said at last. Why weren’t they rushing into each other’s arms like in her dreams? Her mouth felt so dry.

He broke eye contact first as the central column’s glow dully returned. “How long have you been here?”

“Not long. Few minutes really.”

His eyes tracked along their surroundings, and every now and then he’d tilt his head as though he heard something. The sonic screwdriver whirred to life, and he aimed the blue jewel-like tip in her direction.

“And you’re Rose Tyler.”

Dread washed in the longer he remained so calm and aloof. She never anticipated that he’d respond with so little emotion to seeing her again. A new wave of pressure coursed over her mind. She gasped softly and held her fingers against one temple.

“Doctor, I promise. It’s me,” she said through a wince.

He studied the readouts from the sonic, and his eyebrows lowered. “Apparently so…”

Rose’s hands curled in to fists till her dull nails bit into her palm. This was not the passionate reunion she’d envisioned. She wanted to run to him. Wanted to feel his arms around her and have happiness spill out from the seams. Wanted to hear his laughter in her ears and feel his stubble against her cheek. But instead he just stood there. Indifferent. All the words she wanted to say bottlenecked in her throat.

“But, apparently this ship thinks you’re a virus,” he said, eyes flicking over her shoulder. “Look there.” He nodded to the strut she’d just been holding. A garish red bruise darkened the surface of the strut, roughly the shape of a hand print and shoulder.

“How comes it thinks that?”

“I don’t know yet.” He took a hesitant step toward her and the cloister bell rang out from inside his TARDIS. The Doctor stopped in his tracks. “Hm. When I move, mine gets upset, when you move, this one gets upset.”

“I moved without a problem before.”

He shrugged with a cringe. “Well, might be the whole landing a TARDIS inside a TARDIS bit. No matter, I need to get you inside. Let’s meet in the middle, shall we?”

She nodded slightly and took a step, and so did he. The deep, ambient hum of the surrounding ship shuddered again. The Doctor’s TARDIS made one of its own peculiar noises in response.

Rose flinched from the increased flare of pain in her head. And though part of her knew she should tell him about it, another part felt it imperative not to.

“Easy, easy.” The Doctor smiled; they could almost reach across to touch. “That’s it, Rose. One more step.”

But before their fingertips could connect, the pressure in her mind became so intense that she fell to her knees with a scream. The Doctor lunged for her, and the cacophony of vibrations and noise that followed might as well have been cleaving her skull in two.

“I’ve got you,” the Doctor said, gathering her up in his arms. “Rose, what happened? You look—you’re burning up.”

Rose touched his worry-stricken face, but it was a struggle to stay conscious. She closed her eyes to keep the world from spinning. Every joint in her body ached with even the slightest movement. She felt herself being lifted up and carried. A sensation like gentle fingertips over her temples drew out a sigh from her chest. Within moments, the pressure subsided, and she succumbed to the fever-invoked urge to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to lostinfic for the beta. <3

The Doctor whisked Rose’s unconscious form straight to the TARDIS medbay. Her body burned against his chest. Every step of the way, he assessed her pulse and breath rate. To his horror, they grew incrementally worse. Jeans-clad legs swayed and her head rolled as he made a sharp turn into the room.

He laid her gently on the medbay cot, reluctant to feel the weight of her leave his arms. She moaned in distress, so he made sure to arrange her limbs as comfortably as he could. He brushed the sweaty fringe from her eyes. Incredible new timelines with her had unfurled the moment he opened the TARDIS doors earlier, and as tempting as it was to close his eyes and let them flow through his mind, he had to focus.

The Sonic scan confirmed she’d sustained a largely ineffective mental attack, yet suffered an aggressive autoimmune response to something in her bloodstream. He worked to carefully remove her jacket so that he could take a sample of her blood and compare it to an old sample he still had… somewhere. Or did he? A quick fruitless search nixed that idea. For now, he could at least determine the immediate threat. He laid her jacket over her stomach, and turned toward the cadre of lab equipment to process the sample.

A spore-like pathogen with similar genetic markers as the coral element of his TARDIS drifted amongst Rose’s erythrocytes. Before his eyes, the little bugger attacked an approaching leukocyte, burrowed within, and deposited its genetic material. The infected leukocyte then moved on to attempt the same with other cells in the specimen. His stomach dropped. So, the intention was to turn Rose’s own immune system against her.

Rose groaned in her sleep and he sprang to her side. She shuddered, teeth chattered with fever. He removed his long coat to drape over her, and placed a cool hand on her forehead. Life signs wavered. He gave the pathogen on the screen a dead-eyed glare.

“Oh, no you don’t.”

He set up a battery of tests with every antimicrobial he had aboard the TARDIS, and administered the safest of the lot. If anything ever existed in the universe that could help beyond simply delaying the inevitable, it would’ve been lost along with Gallifrey. He stared helplessly at the mess surrounding him. Moments like this called to question his supposed brilliance.

He turned her arm to expose her pale inner elbow, and brushed a thumb over the tender vein, considering a transfusion. He hadn’t been affected, and there was a good possibility that he’d be immune. But the whole double-versus-triple-helix DNA bit threw a spanner in that idea. If only he were human, or even part.

“Doctor,” came a brittle whisper.

He looked up to the face he never thought he’d see again. Faces on their own weren’t particularly meaningful with respect to the value of a person, but this was Rose Tyler. Her face, and everything else about her, symbolised hope. Bravery. Audacity. (Love). Each feature awoke memories that he’d buried deep into the attic of his mind so he could carry on with his days. What an exercise in futility that had been.

She tried to open her eyes as he retook her hand. “I’m here,” he said, a quiver in his voice.

“Mum…”

“No. The Doctor.”

Her fingers curled over his weakly. “Take me home?”

“Earth?”

She groaned, lips moved to form silent words: _Shaking._

“What? Oh--” He’d been so distracted that he hadn’t noticed. Yes, the TARDIS vibrated, a subtle tremor like a passing train. Glass beakers tapped, stainless steel rattled, tiny reverberations spiraled throughout the room. His mental connection to the TARDIS wavered. One by one, Rose’s fingers lost their grip.

The Doctor shook his head, dread and fear swelled in his chest the same as they had when he watched her fingers slip from that lever. “Oh, no. No, no, no. You’re delirious with fever, that’s all.”

Thinking fast, he synced up his screwdriver with the equipment that monitored her life signs, and tucked it into his inside breast pocket, close to his hearts. If anything went wrong, he’d know it in an instant. He then leaned over her and kissed her forehead, tears burning his eyes. “Stay with me, Rose. You can fight this. Gonna check on things out there, all right?”

He ran to the console room, which the TARDIS had moved right across the hall, sensing his urgency. With determined finesse, he initiated the dematerialization sequence. Nothing. Again he tried, and again it failed, over and over. The TARDIS exclaimed her warnings and precautions, but he overrode each one. Still, she wouldn’t budge, and the light tremor continued. _Trapped_ , she impressed upon his mind. Thoroughly and resolutely trapped. He slammed his fist on the console with a curse. Sparks flew.

He jerked over the viewscreen, and switched on the audio feed. The other TARDIS sounded like a whale in a net. Looked like a bomb shelter—lights flashed, bits fell from the ceiling. He dashed over to the door and yanked it open. Silence and stillness laid beyond. No evidence that it’d been shaking so violently just moments ago.

Those blotchy bruises where Rose had touched were now blue-black, and bled like watercolour on paper. Shoe-shaped marks formed a path like she’d tracked ink along her way. He stepped out to fetch a sample for testing, and almost tripped over crusty coral matter that had grown and merged with the base of the police box.

If dread could fall any farther through his stomach, it would be pouring out of his feet. No time to fret over that just now. He hopped out of his TARDIS, over the growths, to the other ship’s antiquated console. Searched through the history log to see if any clue would arise as to how it ended up way out here. As he thought, it’d been part of an early mission to chart space-time, specifically it was meant to explore the start of the universe, when tragically it was caught in the powerful gravitational eddies of this newly formed galaxy and left adrift ever since.

The logs were signed with the TARDIS owner’s name. _Eldradiveriashda._ He blinked in surprise. “ _The_ Eldradiveriashda?” This whole trip has been one big history lesson come to life. Eldradiverisashda was the pioneer of the hybrid TARDIS concept. She’d been the one to posit that the endemic, primordial corals of Gallifrey, with their known psychic properties, could be merged with technology to enhance mental connections to the machinery. She disappeared while on a deep space mission. So this is what happened to her.

He skimmed over a few hundred logs in a matter of seconds—not his best, but translating her ancient Gallifreyan dialect was rather arduous—until one in particular caught his eye.

_Travelling this close to the superforce proved distressing for the organic matrix of the ship. I’ve documented reactions similar to void materia exposure seen in cross-dimensional experiments. Attempting to develop a solution, but given that long distance communication systems have failed, it’s unlikely I will be found._

“Void stuff. Of course.” He ground his teeth. The first range of semi-organic TARDISes had terrible reactions to the void particles, which had halted dimensional travel for some time until the Time Lords discovered a cure. Grief set in for the long lost scientist, and how lonely she must’ve been. One would think that she’d be found as soon as the Time Lords could advance enough to do so, but apparently they didn’t know how to find her. Or they didn’t care.

He backed into the TARDIS and closed the door. The vibrations and audio feed from the console had gone silent while he’d stepped outside. Time dilation. His time sense did feel a little warped, but he shook it off. Not surprising to experience a bit of that with a TARDIS parked inside another. As he rushed back to the medbay, he considered all of the variables.

_Phantom distress calls. Lost TARDIS. Rose crossed the void. Void stuff. Rose came back. Trapped in coral. Rose._

He reached her side to find that her condition had stabilised considerably in the time he’d been gone, which he hadn’t expected. One bioscan later, and there it was. Something unusual. Impossible. New genes in her DNA were expressed, and to what end, he couldn’t be sure yet. But he knew without a doubt that ordinary humans didn’t have these genes to start with. The TARDIS coral, however, did.

Twenty minutes passed, and the peachy colour returned to her cheeks. Her breaths evened out, and her pulse slowed to the familiar rhythm he could pick out from a planet of humans. He grasped her hand as he waited for her to stir.

Three minutes, eighteen seconds ticked by. Or was it two minutes, twenty-eight seconds? He squinted, trying to focus his time sense. Rose turned her face toward him, then opened her eyes. She stared, puzzled, then squeezed her eyes shut. Her lip trembled and tears slipped from her lashes.

“Rose, it’s me,” he said softly. “Really.”

The sadness shifted back to puzzlement. She laughed derisively as tears trailed down her temples. “You even sound real. I’ve had this dream before.”

He squeezed her hand and let her process the disorientation as long as she needed. Her arms moved under the coat he’d draped over her. She pulled its collar up over her nose, and something like bliss entered her expression. At last, her eyes fluttered open.

“Still here. See?” He beamed.

The tiniest sliver of a smile tugged at her lips. “Weren’t a dream then.”

“Nope.” He tilted his head. “Well, unless you were dreaming of me just now. In that case both might be true?” He sat up straighter with a sniff. “Erm. Rose Tyler. I’m gobsmacked--how’d you do it? Wait, no, not yet. Let’s get you on the mend first. Can you sit up?”

Rose kept still, smiling up at him, her eyes bright with tears. She seemed to be making up for lost time with that gaze alone.

He swallowed as his throat went dry. “Erm…” Blimey, how it felt to be on the receiving end of that smile. It wasn’t like he wanted her to ever stop, but it would help if he knew that she could sit without getting dizzy or sprouting another arm.

“I think I can,” she said at last, and so she did, slowly. The coat fell across her lap, so he pulled it out of the way. Her hand went to her temple, and though she didn’t quite wince, her eyes did close for several nanoseconds longer than an average blink.

“What was that? Pain? Pressure? Is the room spinning? Rose?”

Rose laughed. “No, just a little woozy.” She slid her legs over the side of the cot, and he assisted with a steady hand on her back. “Thanks. What the hell happened to me?”

“The other TARDIS infected you with microscopic bits of itself as a sort of defense. Tried to get into your head. I put a stop to that. You unsurprisingly have loads of void stuff clinging to you, which gave it a nasty allergic reaction.”

“Oi, not that again.” She frowned at the apparent invisible particles around her hands. “So how do I get the void stuff off me?”

“I built a cleansing pool after... ” He scratched the back of his head and hastily slid into his coat. “Anyway, it’s a nice liquid photon bath. Should do the trick.”

“God, a bath sounds brilliant right about now. Probably look as bad as I feel.”

Tears had smudged her mascara, and her sweat-damp hair could’ve used a comb. Didn’t matter to him, though. Just this morning there’d been no Rose standing in front of him at all. “Think you can walk? I’ll take you there and let you relax while I try to work out why we’re stuck here.”

Rose slid to the edge of the bed, and he helped her to her feet. Her legs wobbled. They were poised as if about to dance-- her hands on his shoulders and his on her waist. He watched her gaze travel from his chest, up his neck, skim around his facial features and settle on his lips.

“I found you,” she whispered to herself.

He swallowed thickly. A knot gathered in his chest—two of them, in fact. He rubbed circles on her hips with his thumbs, and then pulled her in for a strong embrace. The way her head tucked perfectly against his shoulder sent a powerful jolt of emotion through him. His teeth clenched and he closed his eyes, trying not to squeeze her too tightly. He felt her turn her nose toward his neck. Her chest rose and fell with a contented sigh.

“Are we in danger, or just stuck?” she asked, not budging.

“After what happened to you, I’d say both. I can’t seem to move the TARDIS, which is the biggest cause for concern now that you’re better.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad.” She pulled back slightly so that she could look up at him.

“How did you do it?”

“Oh, um…” She tried to fidget with an earring that wasn’t there—he’d removed them just in case. She wrapped her arms around herself instead. “Um, those dimension cannons, yeah? We massively improved the tech, and still nothing. Test after test, months went by. The team gave up eventually, but I kept on learning more about this stuff. Physics, astronomy… basically more maths than I ever want to see again in my life, but I got good at it. Mickey helped with the mechanics. Think a bit over a year passed, almost two. Then I noticed the stars going out. One by one, they were there, then they weren’t. I warned the Torchwood team, and they went into emergency mode. If anyone knew what to do, it’d be you. Re-opened that dimension travel project and made a few modifications, things looked good in the trials. Only thing left was to jump.”

The Doctor listened, quiet, appraising. “Vanishing stars. Hm. And you ended up here on your first try?”

“No.” She kept her gaze down, hair curtained her face. “Eighth. That’s spread over a few months. Or maybe it’s been a year? I’ve lost track.” She laughed humourlessly. “And I don’t feel fine, but I don’t feel like it’s caused permanent damage, right? Almost like I was buried alive and dug my way out eight times with no memory of being underground. My brain made me forget the void itself, so there’s like… impressions of it in my body, but this dead space where that memory should be. It’s…” She let out a breath. “Gives me the creeps.”

“Sounds a bit like regenerating.”

Her eyes flashed up to meet his. She studied his face, and after a moment bit her lip.

He reached out to cup her cheek. “Hey, we don’t have to talk about it right now. I’m so glad you found me.”

She leaned into his hand. “Me too.”

Before his hearts would burst, he shoved his hands into his pockets and sported a fetching grin. “Let’s get you to that bath, hm?”

“Oh, yeah. Right.” She touched her face where his hand had just been.

He spun around and led her from the medbay. But once in the corridor, Rose stopped a few paces behind him, her footsteps falling away. He turned toward her with a jolt of worry. “Rose?”                

She rubbed her arm and looked askance. “D’you think, I dunno.”

He took the few strides to be near her. Nothing seemed off—medically speaking. He breathed through his nose to steady his razor-edged nerves.  “Something the matter?”

“S’just that… haven’t seen you in years, yeah? I missed you.”

“Oh, Rose. You’ve no idea how much I missed you.” He offered his hand.

She took it readily with a warm smile. “That’s better.”

 _I agree._ Too plain. _It’s fantastic!_ Too cheesy. _Jeronimo!_ No, just… no. What were the appropriate string of words that conveyed how he felt like a satellite settling into the orbit of a beautiful, bright world after ages of drifting through the darkness of space? Well he could just say all of that. But there was a huge lump that kept those particular words stoppered up in his throat. It would just unleash a cascade of confessions, and he’d rather wait till they could rest alone together for hours without fear that the TARDIS wasn’t being cannibalized.

“Like riding a bicycle,” he said. “But much more comfortable, of course.”

Rose grinned. “Yeah.”

They walked hand-in-hand down the corridor toward the void-cleansing bath.

\---

Rose kept sneaking glances of the Doctor along the way for fear she might still wake up and it would all be a dream. His coat swayed with his steps as it always had. The top of his hair bounced. Those crinkles by his eyes had deepened a little, and she wondered how much time had passed for him. Did he age like humans do?

He stopped outside of an open door, and gestured for her to walk in first. “Here we are.” He rocked on his heels.

Rose tucked her hair behind her ears and in she walked. She really had no idea what to expect, but this? A tile mosaic of multi-coloured roses sprawled out like a pathway from the door to circle a pool set into the centre of the room. A domed ceiling stretched overhead, punctured with countless tiny holes. Faint, green-blue light, like from the console room, poured down to dapple the pool’s surface. Otherwise, the room was stark white with no other light source.

“It’s beautiful. You built this?”

“Well,” he tilted his head to the side and tugged at his ear. “Yes. Had to pop over to ancient Mesopotamia to get the mosaic technique down pat.”

Rose kept assumptions on what the roses might symbolise to herself, but smiled reassuringly at his pink cheeks and flustered inability to look straight at her. She walked to the edge of the pool and made a face. The water inside definitely wasn’t water. More like some sort of clear, viscous gel. The thought of it sliding over her body made her visibly cringe.

“Problem?”

“I have to get naked in that?” She gestured to the pool.

“If you want every bit of you void-free, yes.”

“Did you bathe here?”

“Once to be sure it worked, and it does.”

“Naked?”

“...Yeeesss. Wouldn’t want to have something horrible happen because I left my bits all void-y.”

She shrugged, and hid her smile against her shoulder. “So I get in, then what? Is it okay if i go under to clean my face?”

“The switch there when you’re ready.” He pointed to a lever by the side of the pool. “Light will pour through the ceiling to activate the gel. The gel turns colour as it leeches the void stuff away from you. It does tingle. Well, it squirms, but it’s--”

“Squirms?!”

“Yeeeess.”

“Blech. Thought you said this would be relaxing.”

He grinned. “Anyway, you can lay back to get your hair, and if you spread it around your face like a mud mask that should do the trick. It’s all right to dunk under, just don’t swallow any. You’ll have to shower off in real water for at least five minutes when you’re done in the bath. It’s over there.” He nodded over to a showerhead that stuck out from the wall with a chain, similar to the ones at community pools. “The TARDIS will provide you with soap, a change of clothing, and towel. I’ll leave you to it—if you need anything I’ll just be outside in the other TARDIS.”

Rose gave him a thumbs-up. “Ta!”

He saluted, and the door slid shut behind him. Rose followed his instructions and dipped her toes into the strange, and-honestly-rather gross bath. The moment she activated the overhead shower of light, the gel began to undulate. She shrieked in surprise, but after a few moments she got used to it. Felt a little nice, actually. Like warm fingers massaged her with oil. The trickiest part was her face, requiring several dunks.  The gel turned multiple colours as she bathed, hues of purple, green, and blue spread out from her skin. Once the entire pool had turned an ominous shade of dark blue, she shut it off and got out.

She finished up with the shower, toweled off, and slid into the bright pink t-shirt, baggy jeans, and trainers that the TARDIS had provided. Clothes like she used to wear. She picked at it awkwardly, then headed out into the corridor.

First she just stood there in disbelief that she was actually back in this place. Familiar smells, mental impressions, sounds, all surrounded her like a warm duvet. More than anything, she just wanted to find her old room and make herself at home again, but there would be time to take it all in later.

Rose instead headed out to the TARDIS exit to join up with the Doctor. When she pulled open the door and stepped out with a hop of joy, she saw not the Doctor, but a woman in long robes. Rose froze on the spot.

The woman stood at the console, studying the floating projection of symbols before her. Her brown skin shimmered from the glowing central column, and her hair was done in a multitude of long, black braids that were gathered in a topknot. She looked across toward Rose with a furrowed brow, then back to her work without a word. It was as if she hadn’t seen anyone there, but sensed it.

Rose backed toward the TARDIS, alarmed, but stopped when the woman began to speak. To herself? No—recording a captain’s log of some kind. The words were melodious, complex, but Rose couldn’t understand a single one. She had the impression that each syllable potentially conveyed a multitude of concepts, and try as she might, their sounds wouldn’t stick in her mind. Her brain just couldn’t process it, except as a series of abstract notions. But the longer she sat there and listened, the more it made sense in a strange sort of way.

The woman was a scientist, and an important one at that. She was lost and alone. Perhaps even forgotten. Rose took a step toward her with an urge to help so powerful that tears welled up in her eyes. But where was the Doctor? Before she could ask aloud, the floor began to shake. The scientist stumbled, and then met Rose’s eyes once she steadied herself.

They stared at each other, seeing. The scientist’s eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open.

“You see me! I’ll help you,” Rose said, reaching out. “Come with me!”

The scientist replied, her voice panicked, but Rose couldn’t understand. Another quake struck so hard that Rose toppled to the ground. Once it passed, she looked over her shoulder—the TARDIS was still there, but the iridescent, scaley coral had grown down from the ceiling to fuse to the top of the police box. It branched out across the TARDIS’s surface and gripped it like fingers.

She scrambled to her feet and hurried back inside to warn the Doctor.

“Something’s wrong!” she announced to his legs, which stuck out from under the console.

He shot out from under the panel so fast that she flailed backwards. He caught her, pulled her into his arms without saying a word, and squeezed her so tightly she felt she might burst.

“Rose, I thought you were gone,” he rambled over and over into her hair. “Rose…”

“Doctor! Loosen a bit. I can’t breathe!”

So he did, and met her with a wild-eyed stare that made her stomach twist in fright. His hair was in chaos, his suit misbuttoned and shirttails half untucked. His eyes were ringed with dark circles and blood-shot.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, grasping his biceps. “Tell me, what’s happened?”

He swallowed thickly, and his mouth moved before words finally came out. “I… I went out to look under the control panel of that TARDIS. When I came back in, you were gone. Just… gone.”

“How long?”

“Three months.” His shoulders sagged.

Rose flinched. His words like a punch to the gut. “Shit! Oh, god. I only just stepped out a moment ago!”

“Let’s not ever step out separately again, all right?”

Rose nodded. She cupped his cheeks and tried to steady his trembling frame. “Doctor, it’s all right. You haven’t lost me again. God, ‘m so sorry.”

He squeezed his eyes shut for probably longer than he had since he realised she was missing. Rose gathered him into an embrace, and he leant into it with nearly all of his weight. After a time, he sniffled, and they moved toward the jump seat, still holding each other.

Rose rubbed his back, and smoothed the strands of hair at the nape of his neck. “Went out to find you when I finished that bath, and saw a woman instead. She didn’t see me at first until everything started shaking. That’s when I came back in. Literally not even five minutes.”

The Doctor took in a deep breath, and exhaled, relaxing with his head on her shoulder. “She was the pilot. Died over a billion years ago. It would appear you stepped back in time. Way back.”

“Blimey… well does that mean we can do it again? Help her? So, you know… she doesn’t have to die out here all alone.

He shook his head. “I think you know the answer to that. No idea what sort of repercussions that would cause.”

Rose sighed and looked around, defeated. The lights were noticeably dimmer, and the air quieter. “Have you been able to figure a way to get unstuck?”

“No. The other ship is feasting on this one. I truly have no idea what to do. Every moment—” He touched the side of his head. “I feel her here less and less. So. Even if we did attempt to rescue Eldradiveriashda, who knows how much time would pass in here.” He looked up. The lights dimmed and flickered slightly.

“Eldravasher... “ Rose shook her head. “Can we pilot the other TARDIS?”

“No. It’s too far beyond repair. I tried”

Rose rested her cheek on his head. Her heart ached, and she felt completely to blame for all of this. If she hadn’t hopped to this ship, there wouldn’t have been a distress call for him to answer. She wouldn’t have gotten infected. She wouldn’t have gone out so he’d have to wait around three months for her to return while some ship of horrors devoured the TARDIS. He was in this disheveled state because of her. He might lose his beloved ship because of her. She tried to dry her tears inconspicuously.

“This isn’t your fault, Rose,” the Doctor said, stern.

“But I didn’t…”

He gave a shaky sigh. “Oh. Mental shields are breaking down. TARDIS usually reinforces them, so some of your brainwaves are leaking out. Sorry.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Gross.”

He smiled weakly. “I think they’re lovely.”

Her cheeks grew warm. She picked at a nick in her jeans as she blinked away the tears.

“I did have one idea while you were gone.”

“Yeah?”

“First place I searched for you was the bath, of course. Found your pile of clothes and… and the dimension cannon.”

Rose shoved away from him abruptly, fearful that he’d snuck that damn thing around her neck again while they were being cozy. “Oh no. Don’t you dare. Don’t send me back. I’m not leavin’ this place without you.”

He sat hunched over with his elbows on his knees.  “Well, ehm… what if I told you I found a way so that we could go together?”

 

_to be continued..._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Lostinfic for the beta <3

_He sat hunched over with his elbows on his knees.  “Well, ehm… what if I told you I found a way so that we could go together?”_

///

Rose stared at him, not sure what to say—if the words to express how she felt existed at all. This whole time she assumed that her journey to find him would culminate in leaving everyone behind. She spent years mentally preparing herself for that possibility. Long nights awake in sorrow or fury. Days tense with the bickering of her inner demons.

_There has to be a way. How could I abandon mum? I could die. I could soar through the stars again. The universe needs me. Mum needs me. I’m as selfish as ever. What if he’s still all alone?_

They could go together. Right now. The Doctor and Rose Tyler in the TARDIS. She longed to stretch out her arms and feel the textures of worlds beyond her imagining. Family and friends would only be a slip through the time stream away. But that wasn’t what the universe wanted for them—that much had been made abundantly clear.

Well the universe could sod off. Rose would defy the very stars that made her if it came to it.

The Doctor’s sought her gaze after she’d been silent too long. “Rose?”

Rose shook her head slightly in disbelief. “You’d come with _me_?”

Sincerity, desperation, and a tinge of hurt passed through his eyes. “If you want.”

She smiled broadly and bit her lip even as she blinked away tears that wouldn’t stop coming. It’d been so long since she had a good cry, and now that she’d begun they were impossible to hold back.

“Yes, don’t be daft.”

He positively beamed. “It’s settled, then.”

“But, can’t we do something first?” Her gaze swept the coral structures that surrounded them. They’d become ashen, blotchy. The atmosphere was heavy with dread, and the slightest vibration sent a twinge of pain to her mind.

“She’s been in the void, same as you. Soaked in void radiation. That’s why I reckon the other ship is going through such lengths to defend itself.” He rubbed the back of his head.

“Why didn’t she get sucked into the void in Canary Wharf, when the Cybermen…” She licked her teeth and looked away.

“Ah. She put herself in park.”

Rose laughed. “You’re joking.”

A little smile tugged at his lips. “Nope. She anchored herself in various dimensions relative to the force needed to pull her through. She’s… special like that.” He sighed and looked up. His eyes glistened with unshed tears. “She can't evade the other ship’s attacks in the same way, but she’s definitely fighting. That’s why it’s gloomy in here. She needs all of her energy to fight it, to protect us.”

Rose scooted closer to him in time for another round of strong tremors. The Doctor sheltered her in his arms as they braced against falling bits of debris. A distant, deep thump made Rose gasp. Metallic cracks and groans echoed like a great big ship breaking in half. They both looked up when the central column flashed then faded back to a dim, sullen glow. The Doctor no longer fought to hide the worry in his eyes.

Rose reached for his hand. He turned his over so their palms touched, and the pad of her pinkie stroked faint freckles by his wrist.

“So, ehm...” He swallowed thickly. “While you were gone, I reverse engineered the dimension cannon. Made a few improvements. I rerouted its quantum circuit through a new part I invented on the spot, and made it much more powerful.”

She followed his gaze over to the console, where she noticed he had it resting on the far left control panel.

“...but…?”

“TARDIS has to stay behind.”

She shook her head. “Okay, that won’t work then. There has to be a way to save the TARDIS first.” Rose imagined the TARDIS was a bit like the universe’s version of the Library of Alexandria, except sorta sentient, and inextricably connected to the Doctor. A symbiotic relationship. Might not’ve been as deep of a concern before he lost his planet, but now...

“There’s no time, Rose. I could pull the override cable and run a manual dematerialization sequence, but that’d rip the TARDIS to pieces and we’d find ourselves a bit, er… dead.”

“The scientist. The woman I saw--forgot her name, sorry. Maybe she can help us?”

“Long gone before your Earth ever had dinosaurs.”

“But, time’s gone all mad, hasn’t it? She might be out there right now singing ‘I’m Henry the Eighth’ for the millionth round. She knows her ship. She could help us!”

“The second you step foot out of that door, you risk another warp in time. At least in here, the TARDIS keeps us in sync with herself, for the most part. I can’t even go down the hall to grab a cuppa without losing an hour.”

“I know, but if she can help us maybe that won’t matter. Maybe she can--”

His grip on her hand had tightened uncomfortably, and she wiggled it free. His fingers curled into fists.

“I said no!” He twisted to face her, fear and anger flashed in his eyes.

Rose’s eyebrows shot up. She scoffed, affronted, then rolled her eyes. “This is stupid. Can’t believe you’re just giving up like this! Is that what you do now? You showed me how to stand up and do what’s right. So, yeah, ‘m not gonna let you just abandon the TARDIS. I mean, I can feel her too, you know? Maybe it’s the mental shields gone off or whatever, but I feel it. She’s suffering.”

He stood, shoved his hands in his pockets, and wandered the circumference of the console. The faded green glow from the column barely illuminated his features, and yet amplified his sorrow. “Then you’ll have to go back alone.”

Rage swelled like a wave in her stomach. She rose slowly to her feet.  “How dare you.”

He paused on the other side of the console from her. “What?”

“It’s what you wanted me to realise all along. The only way this works is for me to go back where I came from and you to just sit out here and die. Well, it ain’t happenin’. I didn’t put myself through hell to be tossed to the bin.” She launched herself straight for the exit, giving him a wide berth as she passed.

“Rose, wait! That’s not—stop!”

His swift footsteps rattled the grated floor as he approached the ramp. She touched the door, but hesitated long enough for him to shove her aside and brace both doors with arms outspread. She tried to push him away, but he was bloody strong for being so thin.

“Move it!”

The TARDIS lights wavered erratically. The Doctor shot a pained look over Rose’s shoulder. “I can’t. _Please._ ”

When it became utterly clear that he wouldn’t budge, she sighed and folded her arms, turning from him. “Why would you do that? Why would you say we could go together then twist it like this?”

“I’m not twist–” he sighed. “I was trying to get you to see my point!”

“I guess I’m too thick, so just say it!”

“I… I want to be with you. I’m tired.” His voice broke, and he covered his face in his hands. “Tired of losing everyone and everything I love. I don’t want to die out here alone. The TARDIS still has the power to send us both through the void, but not for much longer.”

Rose shifted feet, guilt snuffing out the anger. She reached for him, grasped at his misbuttoned jacket. “But, Doctor, I know how much the TARDIS means to you.”

He leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers. His hands fumbled weakly for her, caught her by the forearms. Every breath shook with the effort it took him to rein in his emotions. “Do you know how much _you_ mean to me?”

Rose closed her eyes as his words struck her heart like lightning. “No.”

“What? Really?”

She choked on a sob. She hadn’t meant to say that, had she? It was wrong, she knew how much she meant to him—or at least, she thought so. What had once been certain had become muddied over time. Doubts crept in, swirled with her grief and longing. If the Doctor could do anything, if anything was possible, why hadn’t he found her yet? Wasn’t he even looking? Reassurances only managed to deepen her sorrow.

She wiped at her tears. “No, that’s rubbish. Of course I do.”

He brushed a tear away with his thumb. “Good,” he said, in barely a whisper. “Because I lost track of how much a long time ago. There’s a unit of measurement even my brain can’t comprehend, and my brain can comprehend a significant amount.” He tilted his head, looked up in thought. “Then of course there’s my hearts, and I’ve never been able to measure anything with those. That’s the trouble and the wonder with something that’s ever-expanding.”

Rose’s eyes fluttered closed. Of all the times she wished he’d stop running his gob, this wasn’t one of those times. She processed the gravity of his words with a clenched jaw, then opened her eyes to study him. They stood close, toe-to-toe. His every emotion laid bare for her to witness. So human, and yet the most alien things about him stuck out more. The birth of the universe still coalesced in those dark pupils. Cool skin made her shiver even as warmth bloomed in her cheeks. His chest was still as stone with respiration bypassed.

“Doctor,” she began with a tremble, “you know how I feel about you.”

He nodded slightly, chest still unmoving.

“So, you’ll understand that I can’t just let you do this. You need the TARDIS. Look at you.” She traced his temple with her fingertips. “I know that gorgeous Time Lord brain of yours has thought through every variable. I know you believe this is the best way, but I’ve got a hunch, yeah?”

His eyes softened, and he smiled with a gentle inhale.

She returned the smile. “Now tell me how we can stay connected while I go out there and save, um…”

“Eldradiverisashda. Professor Eldradiverisashda.”

“Blimey, that’s a name.”

“You think that’s odd, you should’ve heard mine.”

Rose blinked. “What?”

“Doesn’t exist anymore, so, anyway, go on.”

Rose squinted, properly curious. Questions arose like balloons in her head. _How could a name no longer exist? What was it? Does that mean you don’t know it anymore?_ She popped each one before they could escape. The strangest question of all, however, one she tied to her wrist for later so it wouldn’t float away— _Why do I feel like I already know it?_ Focus.

“Yeah, uh, so if there’s a way to keep us in sync with the TARDIS, even if everything else around us isn’t, that’s what we need.”

He looked off to the middle distance, pensive. “There’s a filament that runs all the way from the core of the TARDIS to the heart. There are strands that connect every room, like a circulatory system. The fate filament, it’s called.”

Rose looked over to the console, and to the panel she had pulled open to look into the heart. It felt so long ago when the universe burned through her soul. She shivered. “Can we use it?”

“Possibly. Many rooms have been put into storage or jettisoned by now. There’s bound to be loose strands, but they do retreat back into the core filament eventually.”

“Do you trust me?” she said.

“Yes…”

“Believe in me?”

A sultry, slow smile spread across his face, and she wanted to kiss him with all of her might, but she tucked her chin to her shoulder and averted her eyes.

“Yes, Rose.”

“Then let me do this. Plug me to the fate filament and let me save her. She could help us, I know it.”

“What? Plug you in? Rose, you’re not an appliance.”

She laughed at that. “You’re clever I’m sure you can think of how to do it, yeah? Some sort of, I dunno, implant or something.”

He chuckled, but seconds later his smile fell away. “Just lost the galley. All that tea…”

Her heart clenched to see him look so forlorn. “You can feel when that happens?”

“She tells me.” He tapped his temple. “She’s afraid to die, you know.”

Rose took his hands. “Then let me do this, Doctor. Don’t you think she’d want to be saved? If she’s a Time Lady she knows the rules, yeah? She’d know better than to go muck up the timelines.”

He rubbed his hands down his face. “There’s another thing.”

“Oh?”

“The TARDIS still has the power to send us both through the void, but not for much longer. At a certain danger threshold, she’ll go into siege mode. It’s the only way she can save herself, but we have to be out of here before it happens. All life systems will shut down, and it could last for centuries, so she can survive this, however…” Then like a switch had been flicked, he straightened up, adjusted his tie, and grinned. “ROSE! That’s IT!”

Rose covered her mouth with her hands, awaiting his epiphany.

He began to pace as he worked it out. “Route the fate filament through the dimension cannon. Both of us go outside to the other ship. The moment the TARDIS enters siege mode, we activate the cannon which will bring all of us through the void to your universe!” He took out his sonic so that he could twirl it in his fingers. “Brilliant!”

“What about Eldradiv—stop, wait, don’t help—Eldradiv...Eldradiverisashda?”

“We haven’t the time to pop in and out of the TARDIS until we get the right moment in time to rescue her. The two times I went out there—once before you awoke, and again after you’d vanished—were countless millennia apart. I’m sorry, Rose.”

“Yeah, I understand… but if we go out and she’s there, you better believe I’m gonna try.”

He smiled, gorgeous and knowing. “Oh, I believe it.”

They went together to the console, which the Doctor pulled open with flourish. He winked at her before diving in to search out a loose fate filament. The fact that he was showing off gave her more hope than she ever wanted to admit out loud. He disappeared further under the panel until only his bum and the soles of his shoes were visible. The sonic whirred and cast its blue glimmer on the various wires and mechanical bits.

“Aha, here’s one. Aaaand another, just in case.” He backed out from under the console and sat on his haunches with her.

Rose expected him to have a thick cord or some kind of wire, but instead he held up two tiny metallic red threads.

“There you have it. Fate filaments.”

Rose bit her lip. “They’re small. Won’t they break?”

“Nope, not unless they’re intentionally severed by the TARDIS.” He reached overhead and felt around the control panel for the dimension cannon, then brought it down to his lap. In mere seconds, with deft fingers and the sonic in hand, both filaments were fused to the mechanism within the cannon. He set the circular device aside, and held up the end of the tiny red threads. “Ready?”

Her heart fluttered. “Ready.”

He took her wrist. “I’m going to attempt to fuse it to you with the sonic—might sting. A bit like an IV. Want me to do myself first so you see?”

“Yeah, actually. Thanks.”

He sniffed. “Right.” He released her wrist, and stuffed the sonic sideways in his mouth as he knotted the thread around his wrist. Then once it was secure, he rescued the sonic from his teeth and aimed at the filament. The sonic whirred, barely obscuring the sound of his wince as it disappeared into his flesh.

Rose cringed and turned away, but couldn’t avert her eyes. It fascinated her as much as it disturbed her. “Oh, god.”

He held up his hand and wiggled his fingers, sporting a red, puffy scar around his wrist. The filament stuck out from his skin and draped down to the floor. “See? Easy as pie. Now, let’s see if it works for you.”

Rose held out her hand, and tried to focus on his long fingers instead of how disturbed she was at the idea of this thing sinking into her body. He looped the delicate strand around her wrist, and then aimed the sonic.

“Wait—”

He looked up. “Problem?”

“You sure it’ll… I mean, what if it doesn’t work?”

Dimples formed in his cheeks. “Let’s not think about that.”

“Now it’ll be all I think about.”

“This hasn’t ever been done with a human, but you’ve changed a lot over the years. Even more with that last infection,” he said, matter-of-fact. He was trying not to alarm her.

“How?”

“I’m not entirely sure. The lab went offline halfway through your absence, so the short of it is the infection caused a mutation in your mitochondrial DNA that resembled protein structures of the TARDIS coral.” Again with the even-tone. Like an actual doctor, preferential to the clinical description to obscure emotions underneath.

Rose recalled a strange file she’d discovered in the Torchwood archives while separated from the Doctor. It was created before she ever arrived in that universe, yet bore the phrase _Bad Wolf_. Inside there’d been an update about her with all sorts of genetic information she couldn’t decipher. She wasn’t about to take up studying genetics on top of everything else, so she nicked the folder and tucked it away for the future.

“Doctor, am I—does that mean I’m not human?”

“I wouldn’t look at it like that. More like _evolved_.”

“I don’t feel different.”

He stroked her wrist with his thumb absently. “I’ll tell you what. When we’re finished rescuing a long lost historical figure of Gallifreyan history, and we’ve finally popped over to your universe, we’ll take a better look.”

She watched his thumb trace whorls on her skin, but his tone kept her from complete enthrallment at the sensation. He still had doubts about this plan. Whatever they were, he kept them to himself. She took a breath. “All right. Plug me in.”

He flicked on the sonic.

“Eeew!” She struggled not to squirm. “Oh, god. Ugh!”

It stung as it sank through, and her muscles twitched to accommodate the strand. Unsettling, but not unfamiliar. Like that one time she needed muscle injections during a training injury. The sensation ended the moment he turned off the sonic.

Rose held up her wrist, the tiny red strand flowed out and snaked along the floor, through the dimension cannon, and disappeared beneath the console. She braced for further sensations, like a jolt of energy or mental pressure, but there was only a quiet expanding. She felt enormous, beyond her physical body, and yet tiny. Anchored.

The Doctor released a breath, but then retreated within himself. The brief spark of excitement he’d shown earlier now a vacant mask. He helped her stand, pocketed the dimension cannon, then fixed his mis-buttoned jacket. The red thread trailed from his wrist and lay across her filament as it too disappeared into the console.

“Looks a right mess out there,” he said gravely, eyeing the view screen. “Time differential at play. Appears the other TARDIS is experiencing radiation turbulence.”

“Should we wait?”

“Could be centuries later by the time we step out there. Least of your worries.”

Rose rubbed her arm. “Let’s go then.”

He stepped over to her casually. “Hang on.”

“Yeah?”

He placed a hand on her cheek and drew her close so he could press his lips to her temple. He lingered, and for a moment she thought this was all a great big dangerous mistake. If only she’d just let him use the dimension cannon right now, they’d be safe and sound in the other universe. Why must she always be so stubborn? Why must she always be so bloody human? But she was on to something. And she smelled pretty, like apple blossoms. Always like apple blossoms. It’s so good just to be able to _touch_ her again…

Rose smiled impishly as she backed away from him. “Think your brainwaves are leaking a bit.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Erm… sorry.”

They headed for the door. He struggled a bit to push it open, and when finally it did, the hinges crunched and crumbled. Rose stood in the frame and gaped. A thick layer of iridescent, scaley coral had entombed the TARDIS almost entirely. Beyond, everything looked much the same as it had when she first saw it.

She felt him take her hand.

“We step out at the same time,” he said, expression grim.

“On your three.”

They angled themselves so they could fit through the door simultaneously, and held their clasped hands up by their shoulders. The Doctor looked into her eyes.

“One,” he said.

Rose bit her lip.

“Two.” He squeezed her hand. “Three.”

And out they stepped.

 

_to be continued..._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! Thank you so much for reading, and I apologize for any errors. Thank you to my dear friend and beta @lostinfic. I added a bit after she touched it; all mistakes are mine. Now I will ride off into the blue yonder. It has been such a joy to write for you all over these years. <3

The Doctor and Rose stepped out to the ancient TARDIS in unison. In the brief interim between mid air and a successful in-sync landing, the Doctor was reminded of how stark and small his trainers looked against the immensity of space. Iridescent coral became a dark pit in his mind’s eye. The pull to descend had been powerful, but not nearly as mesmerising with Rose at his side. Her safety and her very existence usurped that urge. He’d spoken her name to the infant universe, so was this the response? Rose at his side, but besieged by chaos.

Once out of the shelter of his TARDIS, erratic, entangled timelines assaulted his mind. He saw not only what happened, but what might’ve, despite trillions of days with no physical change. All possibilities had untethered from those days by the fraying of reality caused by the dueling TARDISes. He pressed his fingers to his forehead as though it might help relieve the pressure, but the intermittent vibrations rattled his teeth and roiled his stomach.

When the timelines finally locked onto the scientist and her lonely life, it was too much to bear with his weakened mental shields. Her timelines wove a torrent around him. She talked to herself relentlessly, wandered the halls, kept ample logs of her days, and regenerated at least eight times with no one to care one way or the other. She’d died long before the Time War, though she still would’ve felt it end.

Rose turned to him with a relieved laugh. “That wasn’t so bad.” Her smile slipped when she realized his condition.

The Doctor pursed his lips in a vague attempt at a smile. “Could’ve been far worse.”

“You all right?"

He waved a hand. “Oh, I’m fine.”

She arched a sceptical brow, then focused over his shoulder toward the TARDIS. He didn’t have to look, he knew what she saw. His time ship stood there behind him in the reflective surface of the central control panel. The scaled, iridescent coral had almost fused with the entire outer surface. If not for portions of the door panel and along the front right edge, she’d be indistinguishable from the other coral struts in the room.

The seams around the TARDIS doors began to glow a dull green-white, even through the coral. It flashed in the reflection; he turned around. “Stand back.”

He guided her a few steps away as the outer shell—the police box shape—flickered and vanished, leaving behind a small metal cube decorated with Gallifreyan designs. Bits of the coral husk that had grown around the ship crumbled to the ground around it in piles. Mercifully, the chaotic time energy reached an equilibrium. The warp no longer warped. The ancient TARDIS around them went as still as a lake on halcyon days.  

The Doctor returned to the TARDIS-cube and knelt down. Two ruby red strands of filament flowed out from the centre of one of its faces. He picked up the cube, at first puzzled at her diminutive size, but then it dawned on him. “Ah, of course.”  

Rose joined him, peering closely. “It’s… small.”

“The coral had been leeching energy from the outer shell of the TARDIS, so when siege mode kicked in at last, there wasn’t enough power to maintain its relative spatial parameters.”

“At least she’s pocket-sized.” Rose touched the circular patterns.

He rotated the cube in his palm to study the symbols, which were not mere decoration. They depicted a snapshot of her overall health at the time of initiating siege mode, and precise estimates of her recovery timeline, all coded specifically so that the Doctor, her pilot, would be the only person to understand.

“Three hundred fifty-nine years,” he said. “That’s how long she thinks it’ll take.”

“Is that what it says there?” Her fingers hovered over the grooves, not quite touching.

“No, that says she jettisoned twenty rooms that I hadn’t been to in three hundred years.” He scoffed. “Now I really want to go into those rooms!”

“Maybe we can figure a way to wake her up sooner, d’you reckon?”

Rose was always one to hope, wasn’t she? He slid the TARDIS cube into his pocket as they both stood.  “Let’s get across the void first.”

“Right…” Rose bit her thumb nail after scanning the room. “Don’t see Eldra, do you? Must already be gone.”

She wasn’t; the Doctor could sense her somewhere near. Alive, but barely so. He grazed his thumb over the dimension cannon trigger with a mixture of impatience and dread for the opportunity to use it now that he had the TARDIS safely in his pocket. Did it make him a monster to hope that Rose wouldn’t find Eldra? That would only delay the inevitable. He needed to flee the oppressive loneliness that clung to this ship like a living thing.

They heard a groan. Rose cautiously approached the coral strut on the opposite side of the room. The Doctor followed, close enough so that her filament wouldn’t go taut, but back far enough so that Eldra’s actual mind would not brush against his. The echoes of it were hard enough to bear.

Eldra was sat behind the coral strut, propped by pillows where she’d evidently been sleeping. Her copper-tinged eyes stared wildly straight through Rose, and her mouth moved with half-formed syllables from her native tongue. His jaw clenched from the effort it took to keep from responding. To have a simple conversation again… Oh, but she wasn’t making any sense. A flare of golden light pulsed just under her skin and she inhaled to steady herself. Her face twisted in concentration, and then it subsided. She went so still after that, she could’ve been mistaken for dead. But he heard her hearts beating, ever so slightly, like a pair of butterfly wings in her chest.

Rose’s frightened, worried expression drew him closer. “What’s happening? She’s changed since I last saw her.”

“Regenerated. She’s trying to stave off another one,” he said.

“Oh, god. Hang on now, we’re here to help,” Rose said as she took Eldra’s hand. “See? You’re not alone. It’s gonna be okay. You don’t have to do this.”

Eldra’s chest expanded with a long, slow inhale. Her eyes shifted toward Rose, and her lips moved soundlessly until finally she spoke, but in Gallifreyan. If Rose could force herself to understand through sheer compassion alone, she probably would’ve. Tears welled up in Eldra’s eyes.

Rose brushed silver hair out of Eldra’s face. “I’m so sorry,” she said softly. “I don’t understand, but I’m here, yeah?”

The Doctor understood: _Mother._ _It’s you.Take me with you._ The lump in his throat grew larger. Hers were definitely the ramblings of someone who had accepted her fate. “She’s too far gone, Rose.”

Rose scooted closer so that Eldra could rest her weight against her. A long time ago, Rose had risked a tear in the fabric of space-time so her father wouldn’t be alone as he passed. A father she never knew, but that hadn’t mattered.

Eldra lifted her shaky hand toward the Doctor and spoke in Gallifreyan. “ _You’ll find me there.”_ She moved her hand slightly to the left so that she pointed vaguely to the console. “ _House Yemandavel._ _Don’t forget me.”_ Her hand dropped.

Rose and the Doctor exchanged a glance, hers uncertain.  

“I’ll explain in a moment,” he said gently.

Rose turned her attention back to the Time Lady, who had slouched against her more heavily.

“Thank you,” Eldra said, syllables slurred, but it had definitely been English.

Then her heartbeats faded off, gentle as a leaf drifting to the earth. She released her final breath with Rose at her side. The Doctor waited until the ribbons of her thoughts slipped away to nothing before he joined Rose and placed a hand upon her shoulder.

Rose sniffled after arranging Eldradiverisashda’s limbs in a comfortable position. “She’s gone. I wanted to save her.”

“You did in a sense, I’d wager.” He offered to help her stand.

She took his hand and they slid straight into an embrace. He cupped the back of her head to hold her ear to his chest, between his hearts. He, too, had been saved by her. Did she know that? That because of her, he thrived? If she listened closely, she could hear it. A hidden track. A subliminal message. Always there between his lungs, passed like a secret from one heart to the other. _Rose Tyler, that woman is buried in your marrow._ A thousand years could pass without her, and she’d still be there to save his life.

He ran his hand through her hair just to feel the texture slip through his fingers again and again--something, he realised, he hadn’t done befor. Not for the sheer pleasure of it. Oh no. He hadn’t ever allowed that for himself. His fate filament caught in the strands of honey-blonde.

She hummed. “You can do that forever.”

“Would if I could.”

“Won’t be me that stops you.”

He chuckled. “What if I want to have a go?”

“Are you askin’?”

“Maybe. If we weren’t trapped at the dawn of time.”

Rose let out a huge sigh. “We should get a move on.”

They released each other slowly. Rose fidgeted with her fate filament as the Doctor turned toward the communications panel of the control console.

“That thing I said I’d explain later,” he said, fingertips gliding across the controls, “she said that when her consciousness uploads, she wants me to deliver it to her family.” He initiated an interface to do just that, but hesitated after gaining access. “But they’re…well. You know. What should I do?”

“Reckon we’re all she’s got. She wouldn’t want her consciousness to drift alone out here forever.”

“No. Likely not.” He wiggled the panel and popped it open so that he could retrieve the memory crystal. It was rather stuck in its receptacle, so he aimed the sonic to release the mechanism inside. He held it up to marvel at its immaculate condition. “It’s all here. Her and anything else she recorded.”

Rose drew near, the facets of the crystal alighting on her face like freckles. She caught him watching her, and she blushed under those flecks of light.

“Ehm. Could even contain, I suspect, clues that might aid in our understanding of what that infection did to your DNA.”

He sniffed and shoved the crystal into his pocket with his sonic, and then reached for Rose to pull her close. Though they were linked together through the dimension cannon by the fate filament, he couldn’t help but worry that only one of them would make it through. He handed her the canon.

“You should be the one to press it.”

“Why not both of us? On a count of three, we’re good at that.” She smiled.

“Well, in the event that only one of us makes it through, I want it to be you. It should be you--don’t. Don’t argue. You’ve got your mother.”

Rose frowned at him. “I know, but that won’t happen, though, so it’s fine. If the whole TARDIS can stick together with this filament, then we can.”

He swallowed. “Right. Still. You press the trigger.”

“You hold it, then.”

“I--”

She stepped close, so close that the cannon in his hand was wedged between their chests. Her eyes bore into his. If she leant any closer, her chest would trigger the cannon. “I’m ready, Doctor.”

He nodded. She flung her arms around him and their embrace activated the trigger.

The void rushed past his ears, down his throat, and through his stomach. It pushed into his veins and tore him apart, cell by cell until he was no longer in it, but of it, scattered to abstract dust. Nothing could be seen or heard or felt, but his consciousness remained connected. Not an unfamiliar sensation, but it had been a while.

After a thousand years or a thousand seconds (no timelines, no time), shapes manifested in the nothingness. Not even his brain was able to make sense of them at first. Were they people? Roots of trees? That one was definitely finger lightning. No--they formed faces, a spool of yarn, nebulae, equations, dragonflies. Matter, once scattered, gradually converged. He had a foot and a neck. Saw his trainers, infinitesimal. Move, commanded his brain, as his arm appeared to reach into his pocket.

The TARDIS cube was tucked in there. A dimension within a dimension within all dimensions, fragmented like a mirror. Reflecting itself to infinity. There was a long red string flowing out from his wrist that spiralled and danced in the currents of amalgamation. Another poured from his pocket, a tiny stream of red, out into the nothingness. He tried to grasp it, to pull on it, someone important was on the other side, but he couldn’t touch it. He wasn’t physical, but his conscience wanted him to believe that he was. It was a start.

He, at last, felt Rose, not as an image like the ones that came before, but as a presence. His mind extrapolated and visualised her conscience linked to the thread of fate flowing out of her wrist through eternity. She was anchored to him as he was anchored to her. Her thoughtforms ascended like caresses, signaled her safety. It lasted forever, and a second at the same time, either way it wasn’t long enough. Bliss, pure and sweet as her smile.

Then he felt tugged, jerked, pulled somewhere, felt himself shrinking, becoming whole. The red strand still faded off to nothing. Where was she? Where was Rose? She was there, somewhere… will she go where he goes?

Then he snapped into existence. A half-blink. The air smelled of cold sea breezes and wet sand. Instead of the rush of the void in his ears, there was the rush of waves breaking in the surf. A breeze rustled apple blossom scented hair under his nose, and he squeezed the body in his arms ever closer.

Rose gasped, her fingers clawed at his coat to anchor herself to this reality. Her panic awoke him from the daydreamy sensation that holding her always brought.

“Shh, Rose, I’m here, we made it,” he said. He rubbed her back to soothe himself as much as her.

Rose held onto him tighter, until the dimension cannon between them dug into his skin. He reached in to dislodge it, and it fell to the sand with a soft clunk. Their fate filaments billowed in a sea breeze.

“That wasn’t so bad,” she said, though her voice shook and he wasn’t so sure she meant it.

“Better now.”

She nodded against his chest. “Yeah.” Her face turned up toward his. Her eyes glistened with tears. “Loads better.”

He looked over her shoulder toward their surroundings. “Where are we?”

“Um,” she looked off to the side and a subtle sneer wrinkled her nose. “Dårlig Ulv Stranden. Again.”

“Well then, it must be a fixed point in the multiverse for us.”

She shrugged a shoulder, and though he had a brilliant explanation for how that could’ve happened, he sensed she wasn’t in the mood to hear it.

Rose’s mobile buzzed, surprising them both. She pulled away slightly to retrieved it from her coat pocket. “It’s mum. Sensors at Torchwood must’ve picked up that I’m back.”

The Doctor nodded, and studied the inland horizon while Rose took the call. Glacial deposits of rough hewn stone interrupted a smooth swath of wet sand dense as concrete. Beyond, hardy shrubs and sea grasses whipped around in moderate gusts. A great many worlds had similar features, and as it would seem, at least two versions of Earth. Their last visit here had been so fleeting, but now it would be his home. He toed the compacted sand and tried to will away the disquiet sense that he didn’t belong here. Jackie Tyler’s excited (loud) voice coming from Rose’s phone helped distract him.

_“Blimey, Rose, where’ve you been? We were about to go after you, sweetheart.”_

“It’s a long story. Can you pick us up?”

 _“Us? Who you got with you then?”_ Loud shrieking of some sort ensued. “ _Don’t tell me you found ‘im. Oh, bless. I knew you would, didn’t I say it?”_

Rose smiled. “Yeah, mum. Missed ya.”

_“Where on earth are you, sweetheart? Says you’re in southwest Norway.”_

“Dårlig Ulv Stranden.”

_“Blimey what is it with that place? Can you pop over in the TARDIS, then, or do we need to come get you?”_

“You’ll have to come and get us,” she said to her mother, then caught the Doctor’s attention with a snap. She gestured up toward the hilly coastline. They started their trek toward whatever sort of civilisation might be near as she asked after Mickey, Pete, and whoever Tony might’ve been.

As a distraction, the Doctor rummaged through his pockets to assess the items he’d packed during Rose’s three month absence. The sonic repair kit, his favourite set of pyjamas, the last tin of Orensa tea from the planet of the same name, and a plethora of other items he couldn’t do without. Even if he could figure out a way to repair the TARDIS early, it could still require decades. He eyed Rose, and his hearts sank. Decades was all she had left.

“They’ll be here tomorrow morning,” she said, staring at her mobile and lifting him from the steady decline of his thoughts.

“ _Tomorrow_ morning!?” He stopped in his tracks.

“We’re fifty miles outside of Bergen, Norway. A bit remote, and the zeppelins are bloody slow.”

“Oh, right. Blimps. The first thing I’m going to do here is invent a better form of air travel.” He fished for his sonic in his coat pocket and aimed it at his wrist. The filament withered and his skin healed over in an instant. “Your turn.”

Rose held up her wrist so that he could do the same. He then tucked it back into his pocket, and searched out the TARDIS cube. They both watched as the filaments disintegrated to the sand like a hot fuse all the way up to the face of the cube.

Rose stared at the cube, brow furrowed. “It’s just…” She hesitated and shook her head.

“What’s the matter?” the Doctor asked.

“Just waiting for the other shoe to drop I suppose. We made it across all right, but…”

He shrugged. “The TARDIS would beg to differ.”

“True. And Eldra. What are the odds that the moment she’s dying is the one we’d find when we stepped out?”

The Doctor looked up at the sky as he mulled that one over. “Well, now that’s a tidy coincidence, but what were the odds of any of it? You jumped to that old TARDIS right where I just happened to be within range of the distress signal. I’d say the TARDISes must’ve sensed one another, and even though Eldra’s had a rather nasty defense mechanism that it probably couldn’t stop, they still could’ve still conspired together.”

“So she wouldn’t die alone.”

“And so we could find each other again.” He smiled.

“Yeah.” Rose smiled with her tongue at her teeth and his stomach flipped like it’d been the first time to see it. “But the stars are still going out, so we have to do something about that. We’ll have to go back across the void, won’t we?” She rubbed her arm. “No fate filaments anymore to keep us together.”

“Might be able to solve the mystery from here also.”

“You wouldn’t want to go back?”

“Either way I’m planet-locked, and you’re here, so, no.”

“M’sorry…”

“What ever for? This is what I wanted, remember?”

“Yeah, it’s hard. This is straight out of my dreams. I sort of thought you’d, I dunno, move on.”

The Doctor flinched. Perhaps he’d been too much of a prat in the past out of fear of the inevitable. “I did, but not from you. I could never. I moved on in the sense that I had to keep living. I had to put one foot in front of the other and brush my teeth lest I fall through a void of another sort. That doesn’t mean that I tried to forget--on the contrary. I did everything I could to keep you here.” He pressed his hand to his chest. “You kept me fighting.”

Rose closed her eyes. Tears slipped down her cheeks, happy tears he’d kiss as readily as any other sort. She opened her eyes and chuckled nervously.

“It’s bloody cold, we should, um…”

The Doctor offered his hand. She moved to his side and slid her arm through his to entwine their fingers. They resumed their path through the sea grass. She bit her lip and kept her eyes trained ahead. They walked in silence for a few paces, before she stopped abruptly by a large, weathered column of stone. He tripped a little on the uneven ground.

“Rose?”

“Doctor, I… what was the end of that sentence?”

He tilted his head. “Which one? I’ve left many sentences unfinished.”

She glared pointedly. “The last time I stood on that beach. It was the worst day of my life.”

“Oh, that one…”

“Yeah, and? Go on.”

He took a step closer to her. She stood stark still, squinting through the glare of  low-slung sunlight. He reached out and touched her face, drew her even closer. His thumb brushed her temple.

“Does it need saying?”

“What d’you think? Would I be askin’ if it didn’t?”

Frustration arose within him. Didn’t she know? How could she still have doubts after everything they’d just been through?  “Rose, I could tell you the end of the sentence in every language I know, but there’s only one way that holds equal meaning for me as it would for you.”

Her cheeks pinkened and she licked her lips discreetly. “Whoa, um…”

He smiled. “Not that..”

“Oh. ‘f course.”

“Well, not yet.” He squinted at her. “Wait, what d’you mean ‘of course?’”

“Not yet? Shut up, just keep goin’.” She reached for him, to toy with the button on his pinstriped jacket. A nervous habit that hadn’t before extended past messing with her own clothing. Not that she hadn’t ever fussed with his clothing, but it wasn’t ever like this. Not because, and perhaps it amounted to wishful thinking, she fidgeted with his button because she wanted to undo it. In all of his centuries spent around humans, he’d learnt a thing or two about their unconscious habits, though admittedly this sort of habit hadn’t been one he encountered with much frequency.

He swallowed as he tamed his wayward thoughts. “I want to, ehm, connect with your mind. May I?”

“Hang on, you mean to tell me that’s less intimate than a shag?”

“I never said that. Blimey, Rose.”

She laughed. The exposed skin under the collar of her shirt brightened with a subtle flush. Perhaps not detectable by other humans, unless subliminally, but it drew his eye like nothing else to her chest for the briefest of moments.

She looked askance. “Yeah, ‘kay. Go on. Let’s do it.”

He first allowed his gaze to linger on her face, noted the smile lines that formed near her mouth, the lack of youthful softness in her cheeks that he recalled on their first meeting. She’d grown into such an incredible, heroic, and remarkable woman, all without abandoning the pieces of her that had always existed under the surface. Compassion, empathy, anger at injustice. This time, he didn’t quell the rise in pulse rate as he gently rested his fingertips on her face and pressed their foreheads together. His mind brushed against hers, the mental equivalent of a soft caress on the back of her hand. And with that touch, he conveyed all of his love for her. He’d been afraid to say it, but this way bore not a single ounce of trepidation. When he pulled back, he sought her gaze.

They stared in silence. Echoes of their fleeting connection whispered over his mind. Actual goosebumps rose on his forearms, which hadn’t happened since before that dreadful white wall separated them. His lips tingled, though they hadn’t kissed. They tingled because he wanted it to happen, and before he knew it his mouth watered to taste her. He made up his mind, but Rose was quicker. She pulled him toward her by his lapels until their lips pressed together-- a kiss both hard with desperation, and soft with reverence. He wound his arms around her middle so firmly that it lifted her off the ground.

Rose Tyler, in his arms. As it should be. Oh, he’d chastise himself later for becoming such a sap, but at the moment all that mattered was her hand on the nape of his neck and her mouth opening under his with a faint flicker of her tongue.

A car honked from the road as it sped past. Their kiss broke with startled gasps that dissolved into laughter. Rose squeezed his middle, pressed to him so tightly that his coat wrapped over her in a breeze. He felt the happiness pour through her, vibrate over her skin, fuse to his very soul. He stroked her hair, and his lips brushed her ear as he spoke.

“I love you, Rose.”

She stopped laughing and looked up at him, serious, but with joy in her eyes. He gave her a sideways smile. Whatever the future held from now on, it would hold for them both.

“I love you still,” she said.

The call of the void had once heralded obliteration. And clearly the other universe had been a conduit for such an imperative, but this one… this one wanted them together. It might’ve had rubbish zeppelins and no _Harry Potter_ , but it would have the Doctor and Rose. He could think of no better place.

 

_fin_


End file.
